Casa Newen Bed and Breakfast located in Santiago de Chile is offering 10% OFF of their winter accommodation including double rooms with en-suite from May to August 2010. To book your room at our bed and breakfast in Santiago visit casanewen.com or email us at contact(at)casanewen.com and quote our promo coupon WINTER10
Casa Newen offers travelers and tourists our fun santiago tours for the summer of 2010! We organize and arrange private and group tours to the must see attractions that Santiago and Chile has to offer. The tours are with experienced bilingual guides and can be personalized to fit your needs.
There are 10 tours throughout Santiago and central Chile catering to every want imaginable! If you fancy the beach and coastline we offer tours to the iconic port city of Valparaiso and the resort city of Vina del Mar as well as the enchanting fishing town of Zapallar. The Isla Negra and Pomaire tour will take you on a journey into the life of Chile’s Nobel Prize Winner Pablo Neruda, visiting the poets home and Pomaire, the traditional potters village known for it’s handmade arts and crafts.
If you love Chilean wine then the tours in Chile offer a smorgasbord of lush green valleys and vineyards. The Wine Train Tour is a popular tour in Santiago and features an original steam train and a trip to the Colchagua valley. There are also wine tours to the Maipo Valley featuring the vineyards of Concha y Toro, Undurraga. The Colchagua Ranch Tour is a unique experience of Chilean wine and culture with a traditional folklore dance and rodeo as well as visit to the Colchagua Museum.
If you are the outdoors type then a tour of Cajon del Maipo and San jose is a sure bet. Here you will find various activities at your disposal. Trekking El Morado National Park to the San Fransisco Glacier is unforgettable as well as a visit to Colina Thermal Baths, a natural wonderland with the Andes Mountain range as your backdrop.
And finally the Dinner and Show tour highlights the best attractions that Santiago has to offer! The cultural center that is Santiago’s main square, the majestic Cathedral of Santiago and the resilience of the Presidential Palace. Finally a traditional restaurant of Santiago will introduce you to Chile’s typical dances, wines and gastronomy.
Visit our website at www.casanewen.com and view our Tours section for more info. You can also book a tour by clicking on “bookings and enquiries” or by Clicking Here you can also reach us by sending an email at contact@casanewen.com or by Tel:+56 02 716 9007 (Santiago de Chile)
We pride ourselves on providing travelers, guests and tourists our renowned personal service and friendly advice so we hope you discover Chile with our Santiago tours
Alejandro Carvajal
Casa Newen Tours Santiago Chile
Newen Craft Shop - Traditional Chilean Craft Shop by Native Artists at Casa Newen. By Adda
Quite a few years ago while living in Australia, I felt home sick and yearned to create something that reminded me of the beauty of Chile. I started to play with clay and made a rosary that is now decorating one of our guest rooms at our bed and breakfast in Santiago. My second piece was an original Mapuche women which has started to crack, as at the time I did not know that it needed to go to the kiln!
Since then, I have been interested in making ethnic - native chilean themed pottery / gres pieces as gifts or souvenirs. As I have created quite a few, the idea for our “Newen Craft Shop” was born. The purpose is to highlight the beauty and culture that Chile has to offer to all the tourists that come to Casa Newen Bed and Breakfast.
Most of the pieces that are available at our “Newen Craft Shop” including the collection of “Mates” (a mug to have “yerba mate” a herbal tea with a “bombilla”) are inspired by pre-columbian “Mapuches” and “Atacameños” (Native Chilean’s) designs. The striking miniature pre-columbian masks and other pieces are made by the well known artists Jorge Vallejos and Bernardita Vallejos.
The Newen Craft Shop is located at our bed and breakfast in Santiago and is open to all our guests and travelers all year round. If you are visiting Santiago de Chile and would like to see our unique Chilean gifts or souvenirs please do not hesitate to visit our craft shop in Providencia to take a little piece of Chile back home!
For more information visit our website at casanewen.com or casanewenbedandbreakfast.com email at contact@casanewen.com or Tel: 02 716 9007 (Santiago)
Luis & Adda
Casa Newen Bed and Breakfast Santiago Chile
Hi everyone,
This year we went down to the local park Inez de Suarez, Providencia, Santiago, to celebrate Independence day and took some photos. We had some ¨churros¨ which are doughy sweet sticks covered with icing sugar, tried some Chicha (sweet fermented wine) and had a dance to ¨La Cueca¨ under the Chilean Flags.
According to the experts, culture shock is simply a common way to describe the confusing and nervous feelings a person may have after leaving a familiar culture to visit or live in a new and different culture.
Generally when tourists visit a new place they are excited about a new adventure. However not being able to understand what people are saying is almost as frustrating as not knowing how to make people understand what you are saying. It’s a good idea to learn key words of the foreign language before visiting a new country.
It might make you uncomfortable when it takes you twice as long to say the same thing as a native speaker, or use the wrong word, but remember that if you are visiting Chile you have nothing to worry about, Chilean people are very helpful and friendly.
Some times our upbringing has made it difficult for us to accept other customs and believes. When we do accept the diversity of our own culture, we’ll be more open to accept the universal diversity and the globalization within the diversity. So, rather than giving up your culture so you can fit in, keep your mind open to new ways of doing and thinking about things. Notice things that are the same and things that are different. Appreciating that variety is what makes people so interesting.
Remember, the key to getting over your culture shock is understanding the new culture and finding a way to live comfortably within it while keeping true to the parts of your culture that you value.
The Passenger
She came from another land
In Chile, the brother of her California she found
Our way of thinking was difficult for her to understand…
the street dogs broke her heart
and Pablo Neruda love poems made her read
“La Chascona” she called herself
and in Bellavista with “poncho” of alpaca
and jewels of silver, her body was wrapped
With music of Intillimani and an Italian soprano
she sailed by the desert until finding San Pedro de Atacama
and in less than a week she was back
She went in search of “something” I did not know what…
On her return she was different, dancing and singing with a celestial voice
something that expressed “only think about the roses, not the thorns”…
and after her visit to the pre-Columbian museum
pledged with the “quipu” incaico of knots of colors, she came
“Chupalla” and hat of huaso she took
they would decorate the walls of her house in Washington D.C, she declared
I saw her leaving with a different expression than the one she arrived with
and in spite of announcing to be ready to return home
I saw sadness in her eyes…
and I knew that she would return to admire the indigenous people,
their “quipu” and its magic soul.
“Casa Newen Bed & Breakfast” Santiago, Chile, March 2007
With Chile ushering in a new bus transport system in february 2007, travellers to Santiago as well as our own guests to Casa Newen Bed and Breakfast are having to learn about the new system called “Transantiago” which replaces the old choatic yellow buses that plagued Santiago with excessive noise, pollution and wild bus drivers!
With the majority of people happy to get rid of the old bus system, there are know new routes and bus stops to get where your going, There is also a new “bip!” transport card, which is the only way to board the new buses using their card swipe system.
Once you have located a “bip!” card seller (usually at your closest Metro station) you can purchase the new card for $1000 Chilean pesos. Each ride costs $370 Chilean pesos and lasts for 1hr and 30 minutes. Now you can use the new transport system which includes access to the Metro using your “bip!” card.
But how do you know where you are going? Well Transantiago has each area of Santiago in a different bus colour, which will only travel inside that specific area. For example you know you are in Providencia if you see an orange bus.
If you wish to travel to another area of Santiago you must board the special green buses which work as connections to other routes
Below i have printed all the colored routes and hopefully the next time you are in Santiago you will know how to get around!
Area “A” Color “White” Section “Santiago”
Area “B” Color “Red” Section “Independencia, Huechuraba, Quilicura, Recoleta, Conchali y Renca”
Area “C” Color “Orange” Section “Lo Barnechea, Providencia, Las Condes y Vitacura”
Area “D” Color “Yellow” Section “Penalolen, La Reina, Macul y Nunoa”
Area “E” Color “Light Blue” Section “La Florida y La Granja”
Area “F” Color “Purple” Section “Puente Alto”
Area “G” Color “Blue” Section “San Bernardo, La Cisterna, San Ramon, La Pintana y El Bosque”
Area “H” Color “Pink” Section “Pedro Aguirre Cerda, San Joaquin, San Miguel y Lo Espejo”
Area “I” Color “Green” Section “Estacion Central, Cerrillos y Maipu”
Area “J” Color “Silver” Section “Quinta Normal, Cerro Navia, Pudahuel y Lo Prado”
If you read spanish you can get further information at the official Transantiago site at www.transantiago.cl
One of the first questions most of our guests to Casa Newen ask is “how can I get down town?” Well the answer is simple. If you like, you could walk a few blocks to catch the Metro, or if you are in a rush you can catch several types of Taxi´s (distinguished by a black body and yellow roof) around the corner from Casa Newen Bed & Breakfast.
A Colectivo is a type of taxi that has a specific route shown on a sign on top of their roof. it takes a maximum of four people, that hop on board anywhere along the route. The fee starts from $350 to a maximum of $400 (Chilean Pesos) per person, depending on where you get off. It is the ideal transport for 1-2 people to take from Casa Newen to the Manuel Montt Metro Station and vice versa.
A Traditional Taxi starts from $200 (Chilean Pesos) and has the advantage of dropping you off exactly where you want. They also appear more frequently and let you pay for the ride, so it is more cost effective for 3-4 people.
Another thing to be aware of is that the cost of taxi´s can vary from day to night-time. The best thing to do is ask your driver before-hand how much the journey will cost. If it seems unreasonable move on.
With these small tips you should have no problem navigating around Santiago and across the beautiful country that we call Chile.